Holme, in his heraldic language, says of this representation, “He bearethgulesa manpassant, his shirt or shift turned up to his shoulder, breeches and hoseazure, cap and shoessable, bearing on his back a bread basket full of fruits and herbs, and a staff in his left hand,or. This may be termed either ahuxteror agardiner, having his fruits and herbs on his back from the market. This was a fit crest for the company ofFruiterersorHuxters.” This man is acostard-mongerin Mr. Archdeacon Nares’s view of the term; for doubtless the huckster pitched his load in the market and sold it there; yet Holme does not give him that denomination, as he would have done if he had so regarded him; he merely calls him “thehutlerorhuxter.”
Concerning the air of this old song, “Hawkins’s History of Music” may be consulted. The tune may also be found in the “Beggar’s Opera,” adapted to the words—“The gamesters united in friendship are found.”[275]
This is the lowest, and at the same time the most expeditious, court of justice known to the law of England. It is a court of record incident to every fair and market; its jurisdiction extends to administer justice for all commercial injuries done in that very fair or market, and not in any preceding one; and to every fair and market, the steward of him who owns the toll is the judge. The injury, therefore, must be done, complained of, and redressed, within the compass of one and the same day, unless the fair continues longer. It has cognizance of all matters of contract that can possibly arise within the precinct of that fair or market; and the plaintiff must make oath that the cause of an action arose there. This court seems to have arisen from the necessity of doing justice expeditiously, among persons resorting from distant places to a fair or market, without leaving them to the remedy of an inferior court, which might not be able to serve its process, or execute its judgments on both, or perhaps either of the parties; and therefore without such a court as this, the complaint must necessarily have resorted to, in the first instance, some superior judicature. It is said to be called thecourt ofpie-poudre,curia pedis pulverizati, from the dusty feet of the suitors; or, as sir Edward Coke says, because justice is there done as speedily as dust can fall from the feet: but Blackstone, who says thus much of this court, inclines to the opinion of Daines Barrington, who derives it frompied puldreaux, (a pedlar, in old French,) and says, it signifies, therefore, the court of such petty chapmen as resort to fairs or markets.
Courts similar to pie-powder courts were usual both with Greeks and Romans, who introduced fairs into Germany and the north.[276]
This is his figure from Randle Holme, who describes him thus:—“He bearethargent, a crate carrier, with a crate upon his back,or; cloathed inrussed, with a staffe in his left hand; hat and shoessable.” He observes, that “this is also termed a pedlar and his pack,” and he carefully notes that the difference between aporterand a pedlar consists in this, that “theporter’spack reacheth over his head and so answerable below; but thepedlar’sis a small truss, bundle, orfardel, not exceeding the middle of his head as in this figure.” Every reader of Shakspeare knows the word “fardel:”—
———“Who wouldfardelsbearTo groan and sweat under a weary life,” &c.
———“Who wouldfardelsbearTo groan and sweat under a weary life,” &c.
———“Who wouldfardelsbearTo groan and sweat under a weary life,” &c.
Fardelmeans a burden, or bundle, or pack, and so Holme has called the pedlar’s pack. The word is well known in that sense to those acquainted with our earlier language. An Act of common council of the first of August, 1554, against “Abuses offered to Pauls,” recites, that the inhabitants of London, and others, were accustomed to make their common carriage of “fardelsof stuffe, and other grosse wares and things thorow the cathedrall church of Saint Pauls,” and prohibits the abuse. There is an old book entitled, “aFardelof Fancies;” that is, a variety of fancies fardelled or packed together in a bundle or burthen.
“Fancies” was a name for pleasant ballads, or poetical effusions;—and hence, because Orlando “hangs odes upon hawthorns, and elegies on brambles, all, forsooth, deifying the name of Rosalind,” she calls him a “fancymonger.”
It is to be noted too, that a porter is clearly described by Holme. “He bearethvert, a porter carrying of a pack,argent, corked, sable; cloathed in tawney, cap and shoessable. This is the badge and cognizance of all porters and carriers of burthens;” but that there may be no mistake, he adds, “they have ever a leather girdle about them, with a strong rope of two or three fouldings hanging thereat, which they have in readiness to bind the burdens to their backs whensoever called thereunto.”
did not exist in Randle Holme’s time. This subsequent invention consists of a strong fillet to encircle the head, attached to a curiously stuffed cushion of the width of the shoulders, whereon it rests, and is of height sufficient to bear thereon a box, or heavy load of any kind, which, by means of this knot, is carried on the head and shoulders; the weight thereof being borne equally by the various powers of the body capable of sustaining pressure, no muscles are distressed, but the whole are brought to the porter’s service in his labour of carrying.
“Bartholomew Faire,” a rare quarto tract printed in 1641, under that title states, that “Bartholomew Faire begins on the twenty-fourth day of August, and is then of so vast an extent, that it is contained in no lesse than four several parishes, namely, Christ Church, Great and Little St. Bartholomewes, and St. Sepulchres. Hither resort people of all sorts and conditions. Christ Church cloisters are now hung full of pictures. It is remarkable and worth your observation to beholde and heare the strange sights and confused noise in the Faire. Here, a knave in a foole’s coate, with a trumpetsounding, or on a drumme beating, invites you to see his puppets: there, a rogue like a wild woodman, or in an antick shape like an Incubus, desires your company to view his motion: on the other side, Hocus Pocus, with three yards of tape, or ribbin, in’s hand, shewing his art of legerdemaine, to the admiration and astonishment of a company of cockoloaches. Amongst these, you shall see a gray Goose-cap, (as wise as the rest,) with a what do ye lacke in his mouth, stand in his boothe, shaking a rattle, or scraping on a fiddle, with which children are so taken, that they presentlie cry out for these fopperies: and all these together make such a distracted noise, that you would thinck Babell were not comparable to it. Here there are also your gamesters in action: some turning of a whimsey, others throwing for pewter, who can quickly dissolve a round shilling into a three halfepeny saucer. Long-lane at this time looks very faire, and puts out her best cloaths, with the wrong side outward, so turn’d for their better turning off: and Cloth Faire is now in great request: well fare the ale-houses therein, yet better may a man fare, (but at a dearer rate,) in the pig-market, alias Pasty-Nooke, or Pye-Corner, where pigges are al houres of the day on the stalls piping hot, and would cry, (if they could speak,) ‘come eate me.’”
This is the place wherein Ben Jonson’s Littlewit, the proctor, willed that his wife Win-the-fight should not eat Bartholomew pig:—“Long to eat of a pig, sweet Win, i’ the Fair; do you see? i’ the heart o’ the Fair; not at, Pye-corner.”
“Pye-corner was so called” says Dr. (James) Howel, “of such a sign, sometimes a fair Inne, for receipt of travellers, but now devided into tenements.” It was at Pye-corner as observed before, that the Fire of London ended: the houses that escaped were taken down in October, 1809, and upon their site other dwelling-houses have been erected, together with an engine-house, belonging to the Hope Fire Assurance company,[277]where it stands at present (in 1825). It was estimated in the year 1732, that “the number of sucking pigs then annually consumed in this city, (of London) amounted to fifty-two thousand[278].”
“A flower—cropped in its prime.”
Elia, author of the incomparable volume of “Essays,” published “under that name,” by Messrs. Taylor and Hessey, indulges in a “Dissertation upon Roast Pig.” He cites a Chinese MS. to establish its origin, when flesh was eaten uncooked, and affirms that “the period is not obscurely hinted at by the great Confucius, in the second chapter of his ‘Mundane Mutations,’ where he designates a kind of golden age by the term Cho-fang, literally the cooks’ holiday.” He premises “broiling to be the elder brother of roasting,” and relates on the authority of the aforesaid MS. that “roast pig” “was accidentally discovered in the manner following”—viz.
“The swine-herd, Ho-ti, having gone out into the woods one morning, as his manner was, to collect mast for his hogs, left his cottage in the care of his eldest son Bo-bo, a great lubberly boy, who, being fond of playing with fire, as younkers of his age commonly are, let some sparks escape into a bundle of straw, which, kindling quickly, spread the conflagration over every part of their poor mansion, till it was reduced to ashes. Together with the cottage (a sorry antediluvian makeshift of a building, you may think it), what was of much more importance, a fine litter of new-farrowed pigs, no less than nine in number, perished. China pigs have been esteemed a luxury all over the east from the remotest periods that we read of. Bo-bo was in the utmost consternation, as you may think, not so much for the sake of the tenement, which his father and he could easily build up again with a few dry branches, and the labour of an hour or two, at any time, as for the loss of the pigs. While he was thinking what he should say to his father, and wringing his hands over the smoking remnants of one of those untimely sufferers, an odour assailed his nostrils, unlike any scent which he had before experienced. What could it proceed from?—not from the burnt cottage—he had smelt that smell before—indeed this was by no means the first accident of the kind which had occurred through the negligence of this unlucky young fire-brand. Much less did it resemble that of any known herb, weed, or flower. A premonitory moistening at the same time overflowed his nether lip. He knew not what tothink. He next stooped down to feel the pig, if there were any signs of life in it. He burnt his fingers, and to cool them he applied them in his booby fashion to his mouth. Some of the crums of the scorched skin had come away with his fingers, and for the first time in his life (in the world’s life indeed, for before him no man had known it), he tasted—crackling! Again he felt and fumbled at the pig. It did not burn him so much now, still he licked his fingers from a sort of habit. The truth at length broke into his slow understanding, that it was the pig that smelt so, and the pig that tasted so delicious; and, surrendering himself up to the newborn pleasure, he fell to tearing up whole handfuls of the scorched skin with the flesh next it, and was cramming it down his throat in his beastly fashion, when his sire entered amid the smoking rafters, armed with a retributory cudgel, and finding how affairs stood, began to rain blows upon the young rogue’s shoulders as thick as hailstones, which Bo-bo heeded not any more than if they had been flies. The tickling pleasure, which he experienced in his lower regions, had rendered him quite callous to any inconveniences he might feel in those remote quarters. His father might lay on, but he could not beat him from his pig.”
Bo-bo in the afternoon, regardless of his father’s wrath, and with his “scent wonderfully sharpened since morning, soon raked out another pig, and fairly rending it asunder, thrust the lesser half by main force into the fists of Ho-ti, still shouting out, ‘Eat, eat, eat, the burnt pig, father; only taste—O Lord!’—with such like barbarous ejaculations, cramming all the while as if he would choke.” The narrative relates, that “Ho-ti trembled every joint while he grasped the abominable thing, wavering whether he should not put his son to death for an unnatural young monster, when the crackling scorching his fingers, as it had done his son’s, and applying the same remedy to them, he in his turn tasted some of its flavour, which, make what sour mouths he would for a pretence, proved not altogether displeasing to him. In conclusion, (for the manuscript here is a little tedious,) both father and son fairly set down to the mess, and never left off till they had despatched all that remained of the little.
“Bo-bo was strictly enjoined not to let the secret escape, for the neighbours would certainly have stoned them for a couple of abominable wretches, who could think of improving upon the good meat which God had sent them. Nevertheless, strange stories got about. It was observed that Ho-ti’s cottage was burnt down now more frequently than ever. Nothing but fires from this time forward. Some would break out in broad day, others in the night-time. As often as the sow farrowed, so sure was the house of Ho-ti to be in a blaze; and Ho-ti himself, which was the more remarkable, instead of chastising his son, seemed to grow more indulgent to him than ever. At length they were watched, the terrible mystery discovered, and father and son summoned to take their trial at Pekin, then an inconsiderable assize town. Evidence was given, the obnoxious food itself produced in court, and verdict about to be pronounced, when the foreman of the jury begged that some of the burnt pig, of which the culprits stood accused, might be handed into the box. He handled it, and they all handled it, and burning their fingers, as Bo-bo and his father had done before them, and nature prompting to each of them the same remedy, against the face of all the facts, and the clearest charge which judge had ever given,—to the surprise of the whole court, townsfolk, strangers, reporters, and all present—without leaving the box, or any manner of consultation whatever, they brought in a simultaneous verdict of Not Guilty.
“The judge, who was a shrewd fellow, winked at the manifest iniquity of the decision; and, when the court was dismissed, went privily, and bought up all the pigs that could be had for love or money. In a few days his lordship’s town house was observed to be on fire. The thing took wing, and now there was nothing to be seen but fires in every direction. Fuel and pigs grew enormously dear all over the district. The insurance offices one and all shut up shop. People built slighter and slighter every day, until it was feared that the very science of architecture would in no long time be lost to the world. Thus this custom of firing houses continued, till in process of time, says my manuscript, a sage arose, like our Locke, who made a discovery, that the flesh of swine, or indeed of any other animal, might be cooked (burnt, as they called it,) without the necessity of consuming a whole house to dress it. They first began the rude form of a gridiron.Roasting by the string, or spit, came in a century or two later, I forget in whose dynasty. By such slow degrees, concludes the manuscript, do the most useful, and seemingly the most obvious arts, make their way among mankind.”
Eliamaintains, that of all the delicacies in the whole eatable world, “roast pig” is the most delicate.—“I speak,” he says, “not of your grown porkers—things between pig and pork—those hobbydehoys—but a young and tender suckling—under a moon old—guiltless as yet of the sty,” with “his voice as yet not broken, but something between a childish treble and a grumble—the mild forerunner, orpræludium, of a grunt.
“He must be roasted.I am not ignorant that our ancestors ate them seethed, or boiled—but what a sacrifice of the exterior tegument!
“There is no flavour comparable, I will contend, to that of the crisp, tawny, well-watched, not over-roastedcrackling, as it is well called—the very teeth are invited to their share of the pleasure at this banquet in overcoming the coy, brittle resistance—with the adhesive oleaginous—O call it not fat—but an indefinable sweetness growing up to it—the tender blossoming of fat—fat cropped in the bud—taken in the shoot—in the first innocence—the cream and quintessence of the child-pig’s yet pure food—the lean, no lean, but a kind of animal manna—or, rather fat and lean (if it must be so) so blended and running into each other, that both together make but one ambrosial result, or common substance.
“Behold him while he is doing—it seemeth rather a refreshing warmth, than a scorching heat, that he is so passive to. How equally he twirleth round the string!—Now he is just done. To see the extreme sensibility of that tender age, he hath wept out his pretty eyes—radiant jellies—shooting stars.
“See him in the dish, his second cradle, how meek he lieth!—wouldst thou have had this innocent grow up to the grossness and indocility which too often accompany maturer swinehood? Ten to one he would have proved a glutton, a sloven, an obstinate, disagreeable animal—wallowing in all manner of filthy conversation—from these sins he is happily snatched away—
Ere sin could blight, or sorrow fade,Death came with timely care—
Ere sin could blight, or sorrow fade,Death came with timely care—
Ere sin could blight, or sorrow fade,Death came with timely care—
his memory is odoriferous—no clown curseth, while his stomach half rejecteth, the rank bacon—no coalheaver bolteth him in reeking sausages—he hath a fair sepulchre in the grateful stomach of the judicious epicure—and for such a tomb might be content to die.”
Eliafurther allegeth of “pig,” that “the strong man may batten on him, and the weakling refuseth not his mild juices. He is—good throughout. No part of him is better or worse than another. He helpeth, as far as his little means extend, all around. He is the least envious of banquets. He is all neighbours’ fare.”
“I am one of those,” continuethElia, “who freely and ungrudgingly impart a share of the good things of this life which fall to their lot (few as mine are in this kind) to a friend. I protest, I take as great an interest in my friend’s pleasures, his relishes, and proper satisfactions, as in mine own. ‘Presents,’ I often say, ‘endear absents.’ Hares, pheasants, partridges, snipes, barn-door chickens (those ‘tame villatic fowl’), capons, plovers, brawn, barrels of oysters, I dispense as freely as I receive them. I love to taste them, as it were, upon the tongue of my friend. But a stop must be put somewhere. One would not, like Lear, ‘give every thing.’ I make my stand upon pig. * * *
“I remember an hypothesis, argued upon by the young students, when I was at St. Omer’s, and maintained with much learning and pleasantry on both sides, ‘Whether, supposing that the flavour of a pig who obtained his death by whipping (per flagellationem extremam) superadded a pleasure upon the palate of a man more intense than any possible suffering we can conceive in the animal, is man justified in using that method of putting the animal to death?’ I forget the decision.
“His sauce should be considered. Decidedly, a few bread crums, done up with his liver and brains, and a dash of mild sage. But banish, dear Mrs. Cook, I beseech you, the whole onion tribe. Barbacue your whole hogs to your palate, steep them in shallots, stuff them out with plantations of the rank and guilty garlic; you cannot poison them, or make them stronger than they are—but consider, he is a weakling—a flower.”
Part of Bartholomew Fair, 1721.
Part of Bartholomew Fair, 1721.
Thetwoengravingswhereon the reader now looks, are from a very curious scenic print of this Fair, as represented on an old fan, recently published by Mr. Setchel, of King-street, Covent-garden. The letter-press account subjoined to Mr. Setchel’s print says, that “about the year 1721, when the present interestingview of this popular Fair was taken, the drama was considered of some importance, and a series of minor, although regular, pieces, were acted in its various booths. At Lee and Harper’s, the ‘Siege of Berthulia’ is performing, in which is introduced the tragedy of ‘Holophernes.’”
Mr. Setchel’s account further represents, that “Persons of rank were also its occasional visitors, and the figureon the right(with the star) is also supposed to be that of sir Robert Walpole, then prime minister. Fawkes, the famous conjuror, forms a conspicuous feature, and is the only portrait of him known to exist.”
Another Part in the same Fair.
Another Part in the same Fair.
There is however, another portrait of Fawkes, the conjuror: it is a sheet, engraved by Sutton Nichols, representing him in the midst of his performances. Hogarth’s frontispiece to a scarce tract on “Taste,” wherein he bespatters Burlington-gate,further tends to perpetuate Fawkes’s fame, by an inscription announcing his celebrated feats. It is recorded, too, in the first volume of the “Gentleman’s Magazine,” that on the 15th of February, 1731, the Algerine ambassadors went to see Mr. Fawkes, who, at their request, showed them a prospect of Algiers, “and raised up an apple-tree, which bore ripe apples in less than a minute’s time, which several of the company tasted of.” This was one of his last performances, for, in the same volume, his name is in the list of “Deaths,” on the 25th of May, that year, thus: “Mr. Fawkes, noted for his dexterity of hand, said to die worth 10,000l.” The newspapers of the period relate, that “he had honestly acquired” it, by his “dexterity,” and add, that it was “no more than he really deserved for his great ingenuity, by which he had surpassed all that ever pretended to that art. It will be observed from theshow-clothof the tumblers, that Fawkes was also a “famous posture-master:—
The tumbler whirls the flip-flap round,With sommersets he shakes the ground;The cord beneath the dancer springs;Aloft in air the vaulter swings,Distorted now, now prone depends,Now through his twisted arms descends;The crowd in wonder and delight,With clapping hands applaud the sight.Gay.
The tumbler whirls the flip-flap round,With sommersets he shakes the ground;The cord beneath the dancer springs;Aloft in air the vaulter swings,Distorted now, now prone depends,Now through his twisted arms descends;The crowd in wonder and delight,With clapping hands applaud the sight.
The tumbler whirls the flip-flap round,With sommersets he shakes the ground;The cord beneath the dancer springs;Aloft in air the vaulter swings,Distorted now, now prone depends,Now through his twisted arms descends;The crowd in wonder and delight,With clapping hands applaud the sight.
Gay.
On the platform of Lee and Harper’s show, with “Judith and Holophernes,” in Mr. Setchel’sprint, which is handsomely coloured in the manner of the fan, the clown, behind the trumpeter, is dressed in black. The lady who represents Judith, as she is painted on the show-cloth, is herself on the platform, with feathers on her head; the middle feather is blue, the others red. She wears a laced stomacher, white hanging sleeves with rosettes, and a crimson petticoat with white rosettes in triangles, and suitably flounced. Holophernes, in a rich robe lined with crimson and edged with gold lace, wears light brown buskins, the colour of untanned leather; Harlequin, instead of the little flat three-corner flexible cap, wherein he appears at our present theatres, has a round beaver of the same light colour. Two females entering at the door below are, apparently, a lady and her maid; the first is in green, and wears a cap with lappets falling behind, and white laced ruffles; the other, with a fan in her hand, is in a tawny gown, striped with red, and cuffs of the same; the lady and gentleman in mourning are evidently about to follow them. From hence we see the costume of the quality, and that at that time Bartholomew Fair was honoured with such visitors.
The boy picking the gentleman’s pocket is removed from another part of Mr. Setchel’sprint, which could not be included in the present engraving, to show that the artist had not forgotten to represent that the picking of pockets succeeded to the cutting of purses. The person in black, whose gaze the baker, or man with the apron, is directing with his finger, looks wonderfully like old Tom Hearne. Indeed, this fan-print is exceedingly curious, and indispensable to every “illustrator of Pennant,” and collector of manners. In that print to the right of Lee and Harper’s is another show, with “Rope-dancing is here,” on a show-cloth, representing a female with a pole on the tight-rope; a stout middle-aged man, in a green coat, and leather breeches, walks the platform and blows a trumpet; the door below is kept by a woman, and the figures on the printed posting-bills against the boards exhibit a man on the tight-rope, and two slack-ropes; a figure is seated and swinging on one rope, and on the other a man swings by the hams, with his head downward: the bills state this to be “At the great booth over against the hospital-gate in Smithfield.” Near to where the hospital-gate may be supposed to stand is a cook, or landlord, at the door of a house, with “Right Redstreak Cyder, atperquart,” on the jamb; on the other jamb, a skittle is painted standing on a ball, and an inscription “Sketle ground;” above his head, on a red portcullis-work, is the sign of a punch-bowl and ladle, inscribed “Fine punch;” at the window-way of the house hang twoBartholomew“pigs with curly tails,” and a side of large pork.
There is an “up and down,” or swing, of massive wood-work, with two children in three of the boxes, and one empty box waiting for another pair. Then there is a spacious sausage-stall; a toy-stall, kept by a female, with bows, halberts, rattles, long whistles, dolls, and other knick-knackeries: a little boy in a cocked hat is in possession of a large halbert, and his older sister is looking wistfully at a Chinese doll on the counter; a showman exhibits the “Siege of Gibraltar” to twogirls looking through the glasses. These are part of the amusements which are alluded to, in the inscription on the print now describing, as “not unlike those of our day, except in the articles of Hollands and gin, with which the lower orders were then accustomed to indulge, unfettered by licence or excise.” A man with tubs of “Right Hollands Geneva, and Anniseed,” having a cock in each, is serving a bearded beggar with a wooden-leg to a glass, much nearer to the capacity of half a pint, than one of “three outs” of the present day; while a woman, with a pipe in one hand, holds up a full spirit-measure, of at least half a pint, to her own share; there is toping from a barrel of “Geneva” at another stall; and the postures of a couple of oyster-women denote that the uncivil provocative has raised the retort uncourteous. The visit of sir Robert Walpole to this scene might have suggested to him, that his licence and excise scheme, afterwards so unpopular, though ultimately carried, would aid a reformation of manners.
On the night before the day whereon the lord mayor proclaims the Fair, a riotous assemblage of persons heretofore disturbed Smithfield and its environs, under the denomination of “Lady Holland’s mob.” This multitude, composed of the most degraded characters of the metropolis, was accustomed to knock at the doors and ring the bells, with loud shouting and vociferation; and they often committed gross outrages on persons and property. The year 1822, was the last year wherein they appeared in any alarming force, and then the inmates of the houses they assailed, or before which they paraded, were aroused and kept in terror by their violence. In Skinner-street, especially, they rioted undisturbed until between three and four in the morning: at one period that morning their number was not less than five thousand, but it varied as parties went off, or came in, to and from the assault of other places. Their force was so overwhelming, that the patrol and watchmen feared to interfere, and the riot continued till they had exhausted their fury.
It has been supposed that this mob first arose, and has been continued, in celebration of a verdict obtained by a Mr. Holland, which freed the Fair from toll; but this is erroneous. “Lady Holland’s mob” may be traced so far back as the times of the commonwealth, when the ruling powers made considerable efforts to suppress the Fair altogether; and when, without going into particulars to corroborate the conjecture, it may be presumed that the populace determined to support what they called their “charter,” under the colour of the “Holland” interest, in opposition to the civic authorities. The scene of uproar always commenced in Cloth-fair, and the present existence of an annual custom there, throws some light on the matter. At “the Hand and Shears,” a public-house in that place, it is the usage, at this time, for tailors to assemble the night before the Fair is proclaimed by the lord mayor. They appoint a chairman, and exactly as the clock strikes twelve, he and his companions, each with a pair of shears in his hand, leave the house, and, in the open street of Cloth-fair, the chairman makes a speech and proclaims “Bartholomew Fair.” As soon as he concludes, every tailor holds up and snaps his shears with a shout, and they retire, shears in hand, snapping and shouting, to the “Hand and Shears,” from whence they came forth; but the mob, who await without, to witness the ceremony, immediately upon its being ended, run out into Smithfield, and being joined by others there shout again. This second assemblage and shouting is called “the mob proclaiming the Fair;” and so begins the annual mob, called “Lady Holland’s mob.” Since 1822, the great body have confined their noise to Smithfield itself, and their number and disorder annually decrease.
About the year 1102, in the reign of Henry I., the priory, hospital, and church of St. Bartholomew, in Smithfield, were founded by one Rahere, a minstrel of the king, and “a pleasant witted gentleman.” It seems that Rahere was determined to this pious work in a fit of sickness, during a pilgrimage he made to Rome agreeably to the fashion of the times, when St. Bartholomew appeared to him, and required him to undertake the work and perform it in Smithfield.[279]Before that time Smithfield,or the greater part of it, was called “the Elms,” because it was covered with elm trees; “since the which time,” saith Stow, “building there hath so increased that now remaineth not one tree growing.” Smithfield derives its name from its being “a plain or smooth field.”[280]Regarding Rahere’s occupation as a minstrel, it may be observed, that minstrels were reciters of poems, story tellers, performers upon musical instruments, and sometimes jugglers and buffoons. Rahere “ofte hawnted the kyng’s palice, and amo’ge the noyse-full presse of that tumultuous courte, enforsed hymselfe with jolite and carnal suavite: ther yn spectaclis, yn metys, yn playes, and other courtely mokkys, and trifyllis intrudyng, he lede forth the besynesse of alle the day.”[281]It is related of a person in this capacity, that he was employed by a king as a story teller, on purpose to lull him to sleep every night; and that the king’s requiring him to tell longer stories, the romancer began one of so great length, that he himself fell asleep in the midst of it.[282]Racine, the French poet, was scarcely higher employed when he was engaged in reading Louis XIV. to sleep with “Plutarch’s Lives:” to such a king the narratives of the philosophical biographer were fables.
Rahere was the first prior of his monastery. There was a remarkable visitation of it by Boniface, archbishop of Canterbury, who being received with a procession in a solemn manner, said he did not require that honour, but came to visit them; whereto the canons answered, that to submit to the visitation of any other than their own prelate, the bishop of London, would be in contempt of his authority; whereupon the archbishop conceiving great offence, struck the sub-prior in the face, and “raging, with oathes not to bee recited, hee rent in peeces the rich cope of the sub-prior, and trode it under his feete, and thrust him against a pillar of the chancell, with such violence that hee had almost killed him.” Then the canons dragged off the archbishop with so great force that they threw him backwards, and thus perceived that he was armed, and prepared to fight; and the archbishop’s followers falling upon the canons, beat and tore them, and trod them under foot; who thereupon ran bleeding with complaints of the violence to the bishop of London, who sent four of them to the king at Westminster, but he would neither hear nor see them. In the mean time, the city was in an uproar, and the people would “have hewed the archbishop into small peeces,” if he had not secretly withdrawn to Lambeth, from whence he went over to the king, “with a great complaint against the canons, whereas himself was guilty.”[283]How the affair ended does not appear.
Stow says, that “to this priory king Henry the second granted the priviledge of a Faire to bee kept yeerly at Bartholomew-tide, for three daies, to wit, the eve, the day, and the next morrow, to the which the clothiers of England, and drapers of London repaired, and had their boothes and standings within the church-yard of this priory, closed in with wals and gates locked every night, and watched for safety of mens goods and wares; a court of piepowders was daily during the Faire holden, for debts and contracts. But,” continues Stow, “notwithstanding all proclamations of the prince, and also the act of parliament, in place of booths within this church-yard (only letten out in the Faire time, and closed up all the yeere after) bee many large houses builded, and the north wall towards Long-lane taken downe, a number of tenements are there erected, for such as will give great rents. The forrainers,” he adds, “were licensed for three days, the freemen so long as they would, which was sixe or seven daies.” This was the origin of Bartholomew Fair, over which the charter of Henry II. gave the mayor and aldermen criminal jurisdiction during its continuance.
Bolton was the last prior of this house, to which he added many buildings, and built “the manor of Canonbury, at Islington, which belonged to the canons.” In 1554, on the dissolution of the religious houses, Henry VIII., in consideration of 1064l.11s.3d.granted to Richard Rich, knt. attorney-general, and chancellor of the court of augmentations of the revenues of the crown, the dissolved monastery or priory of St. Bartholomew, and the Close with the messuages and buildings therein appertaining to the monastery. He also granted to the said Richard Rich, knt. and to the inhabitants of the parish of St.Bartholomew, and the church of St. Bartholomew, all the void ground eighty seven feet in length, and sixty in breadth, adjoining the church westward, for a church-yard. In the first year of Edward VI. that king confirmed the grant to sir Richard Rich, who was created lord Rich, and appointed lord chancellor of England; but under Mary the ejected monks were restored to the priory, where they remained till the accession of queen Elizabeth, who renewed the grant to lord Rich and his heirs; and lord Rich took up his residence in Cloth-fair. The lord Rich ultimately became earl of Warwick and Holland, and the property regularly descended to the present lord Kensington, through William Edwards, who was son of the lady Elizabeth Rich, and created, in 1776, baron of Kensington of the kingdom of Ireland.
Henry VIII. having in this way disposed of the priory and church of St. Bartholomew, he gave the hospital, with certain messuages and appurtenances, to the city of London. When connected with the priory, it had been governed by a master, brethren, and eight sisters.
On the 13th of January, 1546, the bishop of Rochester (Holbetch,) preaching at Paul’s-cross, declared the gift of St. Bartholomew’s hospital to the citizens “for relieving of the poore;” and thereupon the inhabitants of the city were called together in their parish churches, where sir Richard Dobbs the lord mayor, the several aldermen, and other principal citizens, showing the great good of taking the poor from their miserable habitations, and providing for them in hospitals abroad, men were moved liberally to contribute what they would towards such hospitals, and so weekly, towards their maintenance for a time, until they were fully endowed; and in July 1552 the reparation of the St. Bartholomew’s hospital commenced, and it was endowed and furnished at the charges of the citizens.[284]The number of the poor and sick to be maintained therein, was limited under the foundation of Henry VIII. to one hundred; but, at this time, several thousands of persons who need surgical aid are annually received and relieved, under the management of the most eminent surgeons of our age.
Smithfield, whereon the Fair was held, was likewise a market-place for cattle, hay, straw, and other necessary provisions; and also, saith Stow, “it hath been a place for honourable justs and triumphs, by reason it was unpaid.” After it had ceased to be a place of recreative exercise with the gentry, loose serving men and quarrelsome persons resorted thither, and made uproars; and thus becoming the rendezvous of bullies and bravoes, it obtained the name of “Ruffians’-hall.” The “sword and buckler” were at that time in use, and a serving-man carried a buckler, or shield, at his back, which hung by the hilt or pommel of his sword hanging before him.[285]Fellows of this sort who hectored and blustered were called “Swash-bucklers,” from the noise they made with the “sword and buckler” to frighten an antagonist: “a bully,” or fellow all noise and no courage, was called a “swasher.”[286]
With the disuse of pageants, the necessity for Smithfield remaining a “soft ground” ceased; and, accordingly, as “it was continually subject to the iniquity of weather, and being a place of such goodly extendure, deserved to be much better respected, it pleased the king’s majesty, (James I.) with the advice of his honourable lords of the counsell, to write graciously to the lord maior and the aldermen his brethren, that Smithfield might be sufficiently paved, which would bee the onely meanes, whereby to have it kept in far cleaner condition: And” says Stow, “as no motion (to any good end and intent) can be made to the city, but they as gladly embrace and willingly pursue it; even so this honourable motion found as acceptable entertainment, and it was very speedily proceeded withall. Some voluntary contribution in the severall parishes (what each man willingly would give) was bestowed on the worke; but, (indeed,) hardly deserving any report. Notwithstanding, on the fourth day of February, in An. 1614, the city began the intended labour, and before Bartholomew-tide then next ensuing, to the credit and honour of the city for ever, it was fully finished, and Bartholomew Faire there kept, without breaking any of the paved ground, but the boothes discreetly ordered, to stand fast upon the pavement. The citizens charge thereof (as I have been credibly told by Master Arthur Strangwaies,)amounting well neere to sixteene hundred pounds.” This improvement, it will be remembered, was effected in the year wherein Ben Jonson’s “Bartholomew Fair” was written.
In “The Order observed by the lord maior, the aldermen, and sheriffes for their meetings, and wearing of their apparell throughout the whole yeere,” it is ordained, That
“On Bartholomew Eve for the Fayre in Smithfield:—
“The aldermen meete the lord maior and the sheriffes at the Guildhall chappel, at two of the clocke after dinner, having on theirvioletgownes lined, and their horses, but without their cloakes, and there they heare evening prayer. Which being done, they mount on their horses, and riding to Newgate, passe forth of the gate. Then entring into the Cloth-fayre, there they make a proclamation, which proclamation being ended, they ride thorow the Cloth-fayre, and so returne backe againe thorow the church-yard of great Saint Bartholomewes to Aldersgate: and then ride home againe to the lord maior’s house.”
In the same collection of ordinances:—
“On Bartholomew Day for the Wrastling.
“So many aldermen as doe dine with the lord maior, and the sheriffes, are apparelled in theirscarletgownes lined; and after dinner, their horses are brought to them where they dined. And those aldermen which dine with the sheriffes, ride with them to the lord maior’s house for accompanying him to the wrastlings. When as the wrastling is done, they mount their horses, and ride backe againe thorow the Fayre, and so in at Aldersgate, and then home againe to the lord maior’s house.”
“The Shooting Day.
“The next day, (if it be not Sunday,) is appointed for the shooting, and the service performed as upon Bartholomew-day; but if it bee Sunday, the Sabbath-day, it is referred to the Munday then following.”
Ben Jonson’s mention, in his “Bartholomew Fair,” of “the western man who is come to wrestle before the lord mayor anon,” is clearly of one who came up to the annual wrestling on Bartholomew’s-day. Concerning this “annual wrastling,” it is further noticed by Stow in another place, that about the feast of St. Bartholomew, wrestling was exhibited before the lord mayor and aldermen, at Skinnerswell near Clerkenwell, where they had a large tent for their accommodation. He speaks of it as having been a practice “of old time;” and affirms that “divers days were spent in the pastime, and that the officers of the citie, namely the sheriffes, serjeants, and yeomen, the porters of the king’s beame, or weigh-house, (now no such men,” says Stow,) “and other of the citie were challengers of all men in the suburbs, to wrestle for games appointed: and on other days, before the said mayor, aldermen, and sheriffes, in Fensbury-field, to shoot the standard, broad arrow, and flight, for games. But now of late yeeres,” Stow adds, “the wrestling is only practiced on Bartholomew-day in the afternoone, and the shooting some three or foure days after, in one afternoone and no more.” Finally, the old chronicler laments, that “by the means of closing in of common grounds, our archers, for want of roome to shoot abroad creepe into bowling-alleys, and ordinarie dicing houses, neerer home, where they have roome enough to hazzard their money at unlawful games, and there I leave them to take their pleasures.” Another narrator tells of the wrestlers before the lord mayor, aldermen, &c. on Bartholomew’s-day that they wrestled “two at a time;” he says “the conquerors are rewarded by them by money thrown from the tent; after this a parcel of wild rabbits are turned loose in the crowd, and hunted by boys with great noise, at which the mayor and aldermen do much besport themselves.”[287]
It was on St. Bartholomew’s-eve that the London scholars held logical disputations about the principles of grammar. “I myself,” says Stow, “have yeerely seen the scholars of divers grammar-schools, repaire unto the churchyard of St. Bartholomew, the priory in Smithfield, where, upon a banke boorded about under a tree, some one scholler hath stepped up, and there hath opposed and answered, till he were by some better scholler overcome and put downe; and then the overcommer taking the place, did like as the first; and in the end, the best opposers and answerers had rewards.”These disputations ceased at the suppression of the priory, but were revived, though, “only for a yeare or waine,” under Edward VI., where the best scholars received bows, and arrows of silver, for their prizes.
The Bartholomew Fair of 1655, is the subject of